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Monday, 5 September 2016

Elections in Merkel's state

The
right-wing, anti-immigrant Alternative for Germany party (AfD) has
placed second in state elections, ahead of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) in her home state, exit polls say.

According
to the latest estimates by the German ZDF channel, the AfD has
received over 21 percent of the vote in the local elections in the
state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommen.

Merkel’s
Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has so far placed third, gaining 19
percent of the votes, compared to 23 in the previous elections in
2011. The ruling Socialist Democratic Party (SPD) has garnered 30
percent, which is 5 percent less than four years ago.

The
projected win for the AfD, whose leaders have repeatedly demanded
tougher anti-immigrant laws and lambasted Merkel for her open-door
policy towards refugees, comes just a year before the federal
elections.

"This
is a slap in the face for Merkel,” AfD co-leader Frauke Petry
said.

“The
voters made a clear statement against Merkel's disastrous immigration
policies. This put her in her place."

According
to German officials, the country welcomed over 1 million refugees in
2015. The AfD has managed to gain voters from various parties,
according to Petrд.

“The
reason for that is that the voters have not been listened to for a
long time,”
she said, as quoted by
Focus media outlet.

Established
in 2013 following the euro crisis, the AfD has entered the local
elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern for the first time. The party is
already represented in eight out of 16 state parliaments.

It
gained its best results in March this year in the federal state of
Sachsonia-Anhalt, winning 24.3 percent and becoming the second
strongest party after the CDU.

Speaking to RT,
the head of AfD’s Berlin branch, Georg Pazderski, said that the
support his party gained in Merkel’s home state is because “people
see that there is something wrong with this country” and
that change is needed.

Pazderski
also voiced optimism that the AfD will get enough votes to make it
into the federal parliament (Bundestag) in next year’s elections.

“We
are bringing people to the ballot box [who] did not vote five years
ago,” he
said, referring to recent polls that say 40 percent of AfD voters
ignored the last elections in Mecklenburg-Vorpommen.

Pazderski
said that while attracting supporters from various rival parties,
including Merkel’s CDU, the AfD became a “party
of citizens.”

RT
also spoke to AfD economic spokesman Hans Joerg Mueller. He said that
the party’s initial popularity was based on an anti-immigration
mood in society.

“We
were dragged in by emotions. The emotions were built on Islam… on
German people not willing to be changed on their own soil [by
immigrants]."

However,
Mueller stated that in “order
to grow more, to gain more support” the
party should address a broader spectrum of issues, which are largely
present in the election campaign programs of the AfD, according to
the politician. Changing the country’s taxation system would
be one of the major goals for the AfD, Mueller said.

"It
is a serious political defeat for the Chancellor in her home
state," Ralf
Stegner, SPD deputy chairman, said in response to the exit polls, Der
Spiegel reported.

Michael
Grosse-Broemer, parliamentary manager of the CDU fraction in the
Bundestag, said that government policies have “to
a certain point” contributed
to the success of the AfD.

“We
are concerned that the AfD has managed to stir up the fears… of the
people,” SPD
deputy chairwoman Manuela Schwesig said on Sunday.

Berlin
is mooting the idea of sending migrants back to Greece for the first
time in five years. Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere says that
Germany has done its bit to help refugees, but needed help from the
rest of the bloc to take in migrants.

De
Maiziere is adamant that the EU needs to adopt a common policy
towards refugees and that Berlin is unable to handle the burden on
its own. Under the Dublin regulations, migrants should be processed
in the first member state they entered, which for many was Greece.

“We
have done a lot in Europe in order to improve the refugee situation
in Greece,” de
Maiziere told the Welt am Sonntag newspaper, as cited by Deutsche
Welle. “This
must have consequences that will enable refugees to be sent back to
Greece according to the Dublin regulations.” ....